Iowa State bacon festival latest sign of the wildly popular meat

Friday

Mar 29, 2013 at 8:06 AMMar 29, 2013 at 8:10 AM

The bacon craze is coming to Ames.

The bacon craze is coming to Ames.

Jake Swanson, president of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Student Council at Iowa State University, is organizing a one-day homage to the red, marbled meat that has become a divine delicacy for some and a sign of what is wrong with America’s diet and farming practices for others.

Swanson has tentatively set Friday, Oct. 11 for the first on-campus bacon event at ISU.

The idea is to duplicate many aspects of the highly successful Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival held annually the past six years in Des Moines. Organizers of that event sold out of the 8,000 available tickets in three minutes last year, according to a press release.

Tickets will not be needed for Swanson’s event in Ames, and it will be open to non-students.

“We want to show off everything we have to offer, plus, we don’t want to deny anyone delicious bacon. That wouldn’t be very nice,” Swanson said.

Many details are still being worked out, but Swanson plans to have bands, eating contests and perhaps a Miss Bacon pageant.

So why does bacon have a legion of rabid fans that sausage and bologna can’t match?

“Bacon is a pretty easy, delicious meal to cook,” Swanson said. “It’s a very versatile product.”

An online search reveals websites that proclaim that bacon is superior to beer and true love. Bacontoday.com explores the “world of bacony goodness,” while Jason Mosely, a blogger whose alter ego is Mr. Bacon Pants, posits that bacon’s soaring popularity is due to it being a thumb in the eye to an overly health-conscious culture.

“Bacon is our symbol of freedom in the fight to eat what we want,” Mosely said on his website.

Jodi Sterle, a professor of animal science at ISU and a faculty advisor for the Ames event, said the bacon boom happened after it moved off the center of the plate and onto other foods.

“When we took women out of the house and into the workforce, breakfast changed. We saw a decline in bacon as an entree,” she said. “Bacon and eggs for breakfast turned into Pop Tarts or toast as you’re going out the door.”

Bacon is now found in cookies and ice cream and there is also Baconnaise — purported by manufacturer J&D’s to be “the ultimate bacon-flavored spread.” Bacon tops cupcakes and is found in gourmet chocolate.

“It’s good job security but it’s also good for our producers,” Sterle said of the bacon fervor.

Bacon, though, is not universally popular.

It is heavily salted — the Des Moines festival advised, somewhat in jest, that festival goers remove tight-fitting jewelry to prevent sodium-induced finger swelling and to drink plenty of water. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national group of doctors who advocate vegetarian diets, warns that bacon’s high sodium, fat and cholesterol content can increase risk for heart disease, diabetes and rectal cancer. The group, which did not respond to an interview request, posted a billboard and handed out literature at the Des Moines bacon event in 2011 warning of the health risks associated with bacon consumption.

Kris Bell, an Ames resident and a clerk at ISU, was surprised the university was willing to host the event and hopes the institution will reconsider.

“I actually do love bacon. I love the taste of it, but I choose not to eat it, and the reason for that choice is my concern for the hogs,” Bell said. “I feel the pigs, especially the sows, live very miserable, uncomfortable lives. I think the term ‘humane slaughter’ is just a contradiction.”

Bell, whose father was a hog farmer, said that people standing in the meat aisle at a grocery store forget that animals were killed to make the product.

“If they’re going to choose to eat any kind of meat, at least stop and give pause to where it came from,” Bell said.

And the objections may well extend beyond vegetarians.

“We have quite a large population of people that do no eat pork — Muslims, Jews — and is this going to be offensive to them for a whole other set of reasons?” Bell said.

“We’ll have turkey bacon and other alternative products,” Swanson said.

Sterle said the event will shine a light on the positive aspects of raising livestock.

“Farmers care for their animals and provide good environments and proper nutrition and daily care,” Sterle said. “Iowa is the No. 1 pork state. We produce just under 30 percent of the nation’s pork and (that’s really) important … to the state economy.”

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